DFS Basketball 101: How to Win on FanDuel

Known as “Rath” in the Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) community, he has helped run operations for two prominent daily fantasy sports startups.
Michael has taken his insider knowledge and expertise in daily fantasy sports to the content side. Rath won the 2016 FSWA "Baseball Article of the Year, Online" award and was a finalist for the FSWA Best Baseball Series in 2011.

Last week, I covered how to win on DraftStreet and how to find value inside the data. This week, I finished up my three part series with FanDuel. FanDuel has much softer salaries than the other two sites, but tighter restrictions on roster management. Their algorithm updates two to three times per week. The players are only eligible at one position, and the rosters are fixed positions meaning player’s are listed as PG or SG, not G. This makes for a different strategy on FanDuel compared to other sites.

The importance of hitting on your “Blue Chip” stocks is the key to winning in daily fantasy basketball. Another factor is identifying the most consistent players on a nightly basis. Expanding on my original research, I dug into when a player presents value either home or road, along with their consistency.

You can see that a player’s salary isn’t going to differ much whether at home or on the road, but I needed to calculate those in order to create the value measurement. This formula takes fantasy points per game/salary*1000. On FanDuel, your value target for top-tier players should be at least 4x. The value report for each player shows each time a player hits value and for how much. This will show who are the most consistent players, and also the players who have the highest ceiling.

Each player will have their salary (home/road), average fantasy points per game (home/road), value (fantasy points per game/salary*1000), value report (how many games they hit for value and at what multiplier), consistency report (percentage of time hitting 2x or greater), ceiling report (salary at time of hitting 50 FPPG or higher), and notes.

Here are the top players to consider in daily fantasy basketball on FanDuel:

-- We talked about James not having much value on other sites, but his value on FanDuel is on the road where the Heat play a higher pace. 10 out of his best 14 value games were on the road. Also, note his strong consistency rating, but terrible ceiling making him a much better “cash” game player referring to head-to-head and double-up contests.

-- Davis’ highest value games come at home. His salary provides the highest return when it falls under $10,000.

The author(s) of this article may play in daily fantasy contests including – but not limited to – games that they have provided recommendations or advice on in this article. In the course of playing in these games using their personal accounts, it's possible that they will use players in their lineups or other strategies that differ from the recommendations they have provided above. The recommendations in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of RotoWire. Michael Rathburn plays in daily fantasy contests using the following accounts: FanDuel: burnnotice, DraftKings: burnnotice, Yahoo: burnnotice, Fantasy Aces: burnnotice, FantasyDraft: burnnotice.